


Don't Want to Want It (But I Do)

by thisbluegirl



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF
Genre: Because Seb makes terrible decisions and hooks up with strangers instead, But is it requited? The world may never know, M/M, Multi, Oblivious!Seb, Pining, Recreational Drug Use, Seb and Mackie do not hook up in this fic, Seb's crush on Mackie can be seen from outer space, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, club bathroom hookups, hurt/comfort if you squint, matzoh ball soup heals all wounds, the pining could be mutual?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 13:17:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16041242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisbluegirl/pseuds/thisbluegirl
Summary: He’s not going to get what he wants from Anthony. Anthony thinks they’re just friends. So they are. And that’s all they’ll ever be.But when he gets back to the city, Seb knows where he can get what he wants, even if he has to get it from a stranger.





	Don't Want to Want It (But I Do)

**Author's Note:**

> I think you should know the working title of this fic was "Seb's 'Chelsea Days' Aren't As Long Ago As He'd Like To Think."
> 
> This is probably [notcaycepollard](http://notcaycepollard.tumblr.com/)'s fault. They know what they did.

Seb thought he had left this particular bad habit far behind in what he can now jokingly refer to as his “Chelsea days.” Or half-jokingly. Or at least with enough of a smile that everyone else thinks he’s joking.

And then he’s at Wizard World in Tulsa, and someone in the audience says they’re from New Orleans and suddenly Seb’s talking about Mackie ( _one of my best friends_ , he says) like his crush can’t be seen from outer space, and then he’s talking about coping with anxiety ( _sometimes it’s good to be forced to do things_ , he says) and his acting choices ( _I have to make you understand what’s going on with me with my body_ , he fucking says out loud where everyone can hear him). And then he goes on to say various other mortifying things as if he’s having an intimate conversation with someone ( _someone who is definitely not Anthony Mackie_ ) instead of oversharing with a huge audience of people, and _then_ somehow he decides that the best way to respond to a flustered fan is _to jump off the stage and run out to hug her_.

And all he can hear in his head is _great job at being less of a dumpster fire there, Seb_. And he’s been working really hard at shutting up that shitty interior voice, he goes to therapy, he works out, he’s been fucking trying to develop healthier coping mechanisms, but it’s exhausting, okay? And the thing is, he knows, right, like, he fucking _knows_ how to make that voice shut up, but he’s not supposed to do that shit anymore.

Somehow he makes it through the Q&A. And then there’s hours of signing and photo ops. By the end of it all, he’s just one raw throbbing nerve and all he can think about is how Mackie had wrapped him up in a giant hug at the end of everything in Philly and how his brain had suddenly, momentarily, gone very still, like a prey animal trying desperately not to be noticed by hawk circling above, and then his whole body had pitched into Anthony’s embrace, ravenous, everything quiet in a way that had nothing to do with his old bad habits.

It’s been four months since they were together in Philly.

Mackie’s not in Tulsa. He’s not there to wrap his arms around Seb and reassure him that he hasn’t made a giant fool of himself in front of the entire Marvel fandom. They’re not going to go to dinner or go back to Seb’s room and drink a little too much bourbon. He’s not going to get what he wants from Anthony. Anthony thinks they’re just friends. So they are. And that’s all they’ll ever be. Even if they were both in Tulsa. Which they’re not.

But when he gets back to the city, Seb knows where he _can_ get what he wants, even if he has to get it from a stranger.

The club is dark, strobe-lit, throbbing with bass, the air thick with sweat. He’s almost anonymous at the bar, or if he isn’t, New Yorkers don’t give a shit. But maybe it gets him noticed by the bartender just a tiny bit faster.

The first vodka tonic goes down easy, cold and sharp on his tongue. The second one is all hard glittering warmth in his veins and he’s not thinking about Mackie anymore. He slips into the crush of bodies, feels his pulse quicken and sync to the rhythm of the crowd. It feels familiar, easy and _dirtybadwrong_ at the same time. This isn’t who he is anymore. His club-kid days are over. Are supposed to be over. He can’t be anonymous and famous at the same time, and if he’s not careful he’ll tip right over into infamous, just like his agent said. The person he’s supposed to be now isn’t supposed to be here.

The person he’s supposed to be now isn’t supposed to have a thing for Anthony Mackie, either.

He just wants to not think about it for a while. The rush he gets flirting with Mackie. The way his stomach flips when Mackie touches him. The bow of Mackie’s lips, how they’d feel on his skin. The strength in Mackie’s hands, the curve of his bicep. He wants to not think about how Mackie says his name, not his nickname, but _Sebastian_. Looks him up and down, appraising. Leans in close to Seb’s ear and murmurs, “Thighs of betrayal, baby.” It gets him all twisted up inside.

So he’s not thinking about it.

He’s pressed up between two bodies, a hand in his hair tilting his head to the side, and there’s a mouth on his neck just above his collarbones, the scrape of teeth making him shiver.

He’s chasing sensation – stubble against his lips, fingernails on his skin, soft mouth tracing his, the nip of sharp teeth on his collarbone, a silky shirt and the rasp of denim under his hands. It’s so good, the buzzing of his phone in his pocket barely registers. And then he’s being tugged off the dance floor, down a dimly-lit corridor, into a bathroom that resembles a theatre dressing room with its long counter and vanity lights around the mirrors.

With her wavy brown hair and heart-shaped face, the girl he’s following kind of reminds him a little of Leighton. Margarita, maybe. The boy she’s with is apple-pie pretty like a prep-school quarterback and probably just as straight, but his pupils are blown, high as a kite already as he leans back against the counter and gets his Tom Ford jeans unbuttoned.

The girl leans up to kiss Seb, sweet and demanding. She tugs him with her as she goes to her knees.

She taps a bump of coke onto the top of the flared head of her boyfriend’s dick. “Go ahead,” she says. Seb is not supposed to be on his knees snorting coke off straight guys’ dicks anymore, but what the fuck. He takes the hit, and the girl licks the residue off her boy’s cock before tapping another one out and hitting it herself. “You want it?” she says, angling the guy’s dick in Seb’s direction. It’s not bad as dicks go. Not too big or too small, with a slight left curve and a narrow enough head that it’d go down Seb’s throat easy if he wanted it to. It pulses in the girl’s hand, and Seb looks up at the guy. He’s grinning, color high on his cheeks, one hand splayed over his perfect abs, the other hand dragging his shirt up over his chest and thumbing at his nipple.

Okay, so maybe he’s not as straight as Seb thought.

“Gimme another line,” Seb says, pulling the girl in for a kiss, “and I’ll suck his brains out.”

The boy says, “Fuck, dude,” and the girl giggles and pulls her shirt down, tucking the neckline under her breasts. She lines up the next hit on the swell of one breast and licks her lips and smiles. She probably thinks she’s being terribly risque but snorting coke off a girl’s tits in the bathroom of a crowded club is hardly the most scandalous thing Seb’s ever done. He follows the line down and gives her nipple a flick of his tongue before kissing her again, sliding his hand over her boy’s hip and tugging him closer.

He and the girl take turns running their tongues over the guy’s dick for a minute and then the numbness in his nose turns to liquid sunlight in his veins. Suddenly everything is bright and perfect and dude has the prettiest dick Seb has ever seen. He gets his mouth on it and swallows it down, fucking his throat with it and chasing that breathless sensation that makes him feel like he’s flying.

The girl has her hands in Seb’s hair but she’s not trying to push or pull him, she’s just petting him and calling him pretty, and he pulls off her boyfriend’s dick and kisses her again. She grabs one of his hands and jams it down her unbuttoned jeans, writhing up against him until he feels his fingers slip between her slick labia. She holds onto his wrist and grinds on his fingers and he gets the guy’s dick in his mouth again and uses every trick he knows while the guy’s girlfriends fucks herself on Seb’s hand.

“Fuck, dude,” the guy says, voice shaky and a little breathless. “I’m gonna come…”

It lights up Seb’s spine and makes him dizzy, and he wants it, wants the guy to spill his load, going off like a rocket because Seb is _that good_ , wants the girl to watch her boy come in Seb’s mouth while she gets off on his fingers. He nods around the guy’s dick and pushes down on it, taking it into his throat where he won’t even have to swallow. The guy gets his hand in Seb’s hair and tugs on it a little desperately, muttering _fuck, fuck, fuck_ as he comes. And then the girl’s coming, too, hips rolling against Seb’s wrist. He pulls off her boy’s cock and she scrabbles at Seb’s belt, yanking his jeans down around his hips and wrapping her slick fingers around his dick.

She lunges at Seb’s mouth, chasing the taste of her boyfriend’s spunk and Seb is so turned on he’s dripping, and she’s super enthusiastic, and her hands feel really, really good. Her boy slumps back against the counter, watching them with a dazed half-smile on his face and a softening dick while the girl gets Seb off with what will probably go down as the fastest, most uncoordinated handjob of his life.

When he comes, it steals his breath and whites out the world.

After a moment, the girl kisses him again, softer this time, then uses his shoulder to leverage herself off her knees. Her boy has zipped himself up and is offering Seb a hand up off the floor, and Seb’s surprisingly touched by the gesture. It’s only good manners, but it’s a club bathroom, he’s had kind of a lot of experience with club hookups with shitty manners. And then the girl’s handing him a couple of wet paper towels and kissing him sweetly on the cheek and then they’re gone.

Seb catches his reflection in the vanity mirrors, lit up all around like he’s about to go on stage. He hardly recognizes the haggard aging twink staring back at him, deep circles under his eyes, smudge of white powder under his nose, dick hanging limply from his fly. He bites his lip and cocks his head, but the doe-eyed come-hither thing he can throw out on any red carpet doesn’t work so well with bloodshot eyes and a runny nose.

He curses, wipes himself off with the damp towels, and splashes his face with cold water. His phone buzzes against his thigh, and he ignores it like he has a dozen other times tonight. He’s fine. He’s having a good time. He got what he wanted.

He’s fine.

He gets himself straightened up, enough to convince himself that he looks only halfway like he just got facefucked in a club bathroom. Somehow, though, going back out to the bar, having another drink, and dancing until he finds someone to go home with just doesn’t sound that appealing anymore.

Maybe he’ll just stop by the little pizza place on the corner and get a whole, perfect, greasy cheese pie and try to stave off the hangover he knows is coming. When did he get too old for this shit?

He pulls out his phone and is pulling up the Lyft app when he sees his notifications. He’s got a string of texts from Mackie and with each one, the growing knot in his stomach twists a little tighter.

> MackAttack [10:48P]: Yo, Vanilla Ice, where u at?
> 
> MackAttack [11:19P]: i’m in your city bish, you up?
> 
> MackAttack [11:20P]: i’m hoteling it at jfk for like 6 hrs  
> 
> MackAttack [11:21P]: omw to germany you coming to hang out or nah
> 
> MackAttack [11:54P]: k well sorry i missed u
> 
> MackAttack [11:54P]: gonna try to get some sleep before the red-eye
> 
> MackAttack [11:54P]: *cool emoji* *thumbs up emoji* *poop emoji*

 

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck.

 _Fuck_.

Seb’s been fucking around in a stupid club like he’s twenty again, and the whole time Anthony’s been a cab ride away.

The voice in his head that had been so quiet for the last hour or so says _way to fucking go, Sebastian._

_Fucking dumpster fire._

He types out and deletes his reply three times before he hits send.

> VanillaIce [12:08A]: *sick face* *sad face*
> 
> VanillaIce [12:08A]: Level 3 hazmat scene over here good thing you missed me

 He can feel it coming, the crash that will turn him into a paranoid, miserable pumpkin. He barely remembers to tip his driver, and he’s sweating by the time he steps into his building’s elevator. When the doors open on his floor, he’s rifling through his pockets for his keys and he nearly collides with the person waiting to get on.

Anthony takes half a step back, and they both freeze. Seb blinks at him dumbly. Mackie’s in his building, on his _floor_ , and he’s carrying a takeout bag from the 24-hour Jewish deli down the street.

He watches Mackie take in the disarray of Seb’s clothes, his just-got-fucked hair, his bloodshot eyes. The look on Mackie’s face turns a little hard, not enough that most people would notice, but most people probably haven’t spent as many hours as Seb has studying each of Mackie’s microexpressions.

“Oh, you meant, like, the fucked-up kind of sick, not like, _sick_ sick,” Mackie says.

Seb tries hard not to hear the disappointment in his voice. His hands are starting to shake. He nods, swallowing hard around the lump of self-loathing in his throat.

“Come on, man,” Mackie says. “You look like you could use a shower, and matzoh ball soup’s as good for a hangover as it is for a stomach bug.”

He lets Mackie into the apartment and gets shooed into the bedroom to shower and change. When he shuffles out again, Mackie waves him over to the couch and hands him a couple of antacids and a full glass of water, and when he’s swallowed them down, Mackie presses his favorite soup mug into his hands.

The scent of chicken consommé settles over him like a warm blanket, and then Mackie’s wrapping him in an actual blanket and pulling up some stand-up special on Netflix. And when Mackie drapes an arm over his shoulder, Seb’s brain finally, _finally_ goes gloriously, blissfully quiet.

At some point, Mackie takes the empty mug from him and sets it on the coffee table, grumbling at him low and sweet in a way that Seb’s stupid trashfire brain really wants to read as _affectionate,_ and then he tips Seb down to pillow his head on Mackie's thigh. With the warm weight of Mackie’s hand combing through his hair, he falls asleep.

He wakes up to late afternoon sun spilling in through the windows. The light hurts his eyes, and he grimaces thinking of characters he’s played feeling this same feeling. He finds his phone on the coffee table next to a full glass of water and a bottle of ibuprofen. There’s a string of text messages from Mackie.

> MackAttack [5:06A]: you drooled on my leg asshole
> 
> MackAttack [5:06A]: you’re lucky you’re cute when you snore
> 
> MackAttack [5:08A]: Seb
> 
> MackAttack [5:08A]: i’ve got your back, baby
> 
> MackAttack [5:08A]: no matter what
> 
> MackAttack [5:08A]: facetime me
> 
> MackAttack [5:09A]: i’ll see you in a week
> 
> MackAttack [5:11A]: lay off the coke, k?

 Seb texts back a head-bandage face emoji, bowl-and-spoon emoji, heart-eyes emoji, and halo-smiley face emoji. Tomorrow he’ll call his therapist and go let Don kick his ass at the gym and start again the slow work of getting a grip on the dumpster fire that is his life. He heats up the second quart of matzoh ball soup he finds in the fridge and eats it on the couch, wrapped in the blanket that just barely smells of Mackie’s cologne, rewatching the stand-up special from last night and very carefully not thinking about the way Mackie’s hand felt in his hair. And if his eyes are burning and his nose is sniffly, well. He can just blame the hangover.

He’s woken some time later by his phone chiming with an incoming Facetime, Mackie’s gap-toothed smile on the screen. His pulse gives a wistful little kick, and he slides to answer. Mackie thinks they’re friends. So they are. Even if that’s all they’ll ever be.


End file.
